Does your Book get Pushed Aside?

Writing your book is so often the project that gets brushed aside because it doesn’t jump to the top of your inbox or grab you by the collar. It never yells or nags. You have to seek it out. That’s why we’re going to find space in your busy schedule to go after your heart’s desire so that you’re living a life you love, rather than a life you feel forced into.

I know, I know, it’s always something. But if we’re honest it’s usually the same thing. There’s a pattern when we stop to recognize it. This is an enormous advantage because when you can see it you can change it. The point is, once you recognize these patterns, you can see that it doesn’t have to be that way.

We get so busy being everything to everybody else, and our life goes on a tangent. Then one day somebody asks us what we want, and we look left and right and ask, “Wait, who are you talking too?”

This is why I love doing a simple one-page exercise on recognizing your core values.

I'll never forget the first time a coach asked me to name my core values. She didn't say any more than that, and yet I knew mine instantly: meaning, creativity and adventure. Then she asked if my life and career matched those values. Cue deer in headlights. They didn't match at all.

When I lean into my core values I have more energy, I'm a better problem solver, and ultimately become more balanced and secure. As Rumi said in his poetry, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” Doing anything else is swimming upstream from that river that exhausts your time and energy.

Here’s how you do this exercise. Get out a blank sheet of paper and write your three core values at the top.  They might be freedom, passion, generosity, honesty, open-mindedness, or love. You decide. Draw a line under your values and brain dump all the things you have to do. All the major projects, and anything that takes a lot of time.

Circle everything that aligns with your values. You can even cross out the things that conflict with your values. It doesn’t mean you have to quit your job, steal away in train cars and carry your belongings in a polka dot satchel. The first step is awareness.